


Grasping at Kisses and Toys

by Arsenic



Category: Hawkeye (Comics)
Genre: Canon Typical Violence, Christmas, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-20
Updated: 2012-11-20
Packaged: 2017-11-19 02:43:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/568179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arsenic/pseuds/Arsenic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint doesn't really do Christmas.  Kate has decided he's going to this year.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grasping at Kisses and Toys

**Author's Note:**

  * For [false_alexis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/false_alexis/gifts).



> Thank you to my beta, copperbadge. Also thank you to the mods, for running Yuletide again this year. Most of all thank you to my recipient, who had a lot of fun requests and was very easygoing. Hope you enjoy!!

_Moving between the legs of tables and of chairs, rising or falling, grasping at kisses and toys, advancing boldly, sudden to take alarm, retreating to the corner of arm and knee, eager to be reassured, taking pleasure in the fragrant brilliance of the Christmas tree._

**-T.S. Eliot**

***

Clint just knows the day is going to be shot when he wakes up and Kate is already there, having drunk the last of the coffee. He frowns at the coffee maker as though it is the one who has betrayed him and then at Kate. "I don’t come to your house and steal your lifelines."

"That's because I was smart enough not to give you a key," she says without looking up from reading the funnies. 

Clint looks mournfully at the line of coffee mugs in his dish drainer and mutters, "See if I ever respect _your_ privacy again."

Kate looks up for one moment to smile sweetly at him, then goes back to her reading.

*

Later, at the range, Kate asks, "What're you getting Natasha for Christmas?" and Clint almost misses the shot he's taking. (He doesn't, okay, because he's been distracted by worse, but what?)

"What?"

Kate looks away from her target and makes the shot she'd just released anyway. Clint grins. That's his girl. She tilts her head. "Christmas? A holiday celebrated widely in America? Technically Christian but often secular for a lot of people, in which gifts are exchan—"

Clint cuts her off. "I've never really, uh, Christmas isn't exactly a thing for me."

Clint has a second to realize he's made a serious tactical mistake before Kate's slow-growing grin is practically feral and she says, "It's going to be."

*

Kate writes a list of people Clint evidently needs to buy presents for. Her order goes:

 _1\. Captain Fucking America_  
2\. Salt 'n Peppa Potts  
3\. Tony Hot Rod Stark  
4\. Phillip J. Coulson  
5\. Black Widow  
6\. Dr. Big Green Rage Monster  
7\. Maria Hill  
8\. Director Fury  
9\. Everyone's Favorite Alien God  
10\. Best Partner Ever Created, On Earth Or Anywhere Else 

Clint holds up the paper and asks, "Really?"

Kate shrugs. "You know you think of everyone who won't kill you for it by stupid codenames, too."

Clint actually doesn't. One codename for everyone is enough, thanks. He considers the list. The order is a little different in his head, but all in all, he has to admit Kate has pretty much covered it. He asks, "Can't I just buy people gift certificates?"

If Kate describes his tone of voice as plaintive to anyone, ever, he will deny it. And then remind her who the better shot is.

She gives him an unimpressed look. "See? This is why people like me better."

*

Kate tells him, "In the interest of organization and my preferences, we're going in order down the list."

Clint looks to Lucky for manly support and solidarity, but Lucky just looks excitedly at Kate, who is putting on her shoes. He's learned too well that she can often be cajoled—by literal puppy eyes—into taking him for a quick walk once in proper footwear. Clint feels the betrayal deeply, but there is nothing to be done for it.

She takes the keys and says, nonchalantly, "We can stop at Hanco on the way."

Clint recognizes he's easy, but the thought of Vietnamese coffee really is all it takes to get him out the door.

*

Steve is actually pretty simple, as it turns out. Kate takes them to a shop where they can purchase 78s, and although the two of them squabble about what Cap would listen to—Clint's insistent on Roy Rogers, Kate thinks they should go for Dixieland jazz, also, that she should punch Clint in the face—they compromise on Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" and one of Ella Fitzgerald's earlier recordings.

For Pepper, Kate pulls him into a store on Madison that looks like it is where fancy, expensive, dangerous looking heels go to congregate and plot against the general public. Clint can't help feeling a little threatened. He thinks he's possibly spent too much time with Kate, who could easily disengage one of those stilettos and use it as an archery-based projectile. Clint's slowly getting used to being wealthy, but the idea of spending what would have once fed him for half a year or more on shoes makes him a little twitchy, even if they _can_ double as weapons.

He's not the only one who's twitchy, half the store is throwing what they clearly think are subtle glances their way. It happens; there's no good way to hide a bow-case and a quiver, and Clint isn't big on leaving the weapon he's most comfortable with in the car. Kate, on the other hand, has a specific bow in a special case just for shopping trips; it is mildly bedazzled.

Kate is talking to him, throwing out words that Clint knows, intellectually, relate to designers, but has no actual understanding of, when a shot is fired from the fucking ceiling, clipping Clint's left arm and hitting the saleswoman behind him. Kate mutters, " _This_ is not—fucking—happening."

She's already behind one of the displays, though, and has an arrow three quarters nocked, so Clint doesn't say a word, just shoots at the spot where the fire came from with his own bow. He's satisfied somewhat by the yelp that filters down through the ceiling panel, but he knows the shooter was already on the move. Which makes no sense. Who the fuck shoots a random saleswoman in a shoe store and then disappears? Clint realizes they're expensive shoes, but there are far easier ways to shoplift than attempted first-degree murder.

Quickly, he turns his attention to the injured woman. She's shaking and looks kind of shock-y, but to her credit, she's not screaming. There are plenty of other people who are doing it for her. He checks quickly to make sure the hit isn't fatal. When he's sure it isn't, he takes off his jacket and presses it to the wound. He motions over the nearest person, a customer, and says, "Keep this on her, and if an ambulance hasn't been called, take care of that now."

He brushes the hair off her face and says, "You're gonna be fine, okay? Just stay calm and the paramedic will be here soon."

Thankfully, Kate's there, dealing with the shooter. The shot she takes that follows quickly on Clint's first one elicits an honest groan. Between the two of them, Clint's pretty damn sure they've slowed the shooter down. Clint tells her, "I've got the vents."

Kate rolls her eyes. "Oh, really? What a surprise."

She's already moving out the back, though, so Clint doesn't bother responding, just finds the nearest entry for himself, and starts tracking the sounds of pain coming from ahead of and above him.

*

Approximately six seconds after he's climbed in the vent, it occurs to Clint exactly who shoots a salesperson in broad daylight: someone who needs a diversion. "Fuck."

He's not going to leave Kate hanging, though, so he finishes chasing until they've got the perpetrator sandwiched between them. He's ex-military, Clint can tell, the kind who couldn't fit back into society and ended up going a little nuts with it. Clint hates dealing with these guys, not only because they're generally trained in resisting interrogation, but because Clint recognizes something of himself in them, what he probably would have become if not for SHIELD.

Neither of their arrows is embedded in him, which either means they both skimmed, or that he pushed them through. There's not enough blood to suggest the latter.

First thing he says to Kate is, "Kidnapping diversion."

Kate's eyes go a little round and she asks, "What, people can't just set off car alarms anymore?"

Clint sympathizes. There's a woman shot just for coming in to work that morning. He says, "I've got him. Go back in and figure out who's missing. We'll work from there."

Kate says, "You are not getting out of Christmas shopping, mister. This is just an…inconvenience."

Clint mutters, "Story of my life," and says, loudly, "Go."

*

Kate comes back with the prescient announcement, "You're not going to like it."

"Because everything else leading up to this was a trip to the amusement park," Clint says. "Just tell me."

"We're missing the heiress to the Sony fortune."

"Okay, one, _we're_ not missing anything. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time does not mean we had an heiress in the first place. Two, fuck."

"Yup," Kate agrees.

Clint counts backward, figuring it's been less than ten minutes since the first shot. The police are close, he can hear the sirens. It's a surprisingly long response time for such a wealthy area, which is inconvenient, in this case. He eyes their prisoner standing in front of him contemplatively and then asks, "You know how many non-fatal places I could shoot these arrows into you before the police get here? And I would totally get away with it because a lot of them still have a lingering fondness to the people who saved their city."

The guy looks at Clint with dead eyes, and Clint figures he actually has a better tactic. "You know you're never going to get the money. You have to know that."

No response. Clint sighs, and starts with the target's foot. He talks on the second foot, as Clint is re-aiming for the genital area. Kate assures the shooter, "Most people give after the first arrow."

*

Clint hands the guy over to the police. The head investigator says, "It would make it a lot easier to ignore if you didn't use arrows, you realize?"

Clint shrugs. "Make me a lot harder to identify, too."

The officer evidently gives him that, because he nods and wanders off to do his job. Clint only feels slightly bad that he hasn't mentioned how Kate and he have details, but really, they work more efficiently on their own. Clint gets in the car, which she's got idling nearby and says, "You owe me another coffee."

"Why are you so whiney? Nobody likes a crybaby."

"Triple shot of espresso," Clint tells her. She gets past the crime scene and guns it.

*

From there on out, it's a pretty straightforward rescue job. The guys who are working the job are professionals, but they're not Avenger-grade or Avenger-Sidekick-grade, so Clint has Kate cover him from a window that's not especially convenient, but which she can make work. He goes in and takes the girl out. Distraction works both ways, motherfuckers.

Once they've got the girl in the car and are making time getting away, Clint turns around and asks, "Where's home?"

Her eyes are wide and he can tell she's only half mentally present, but she gives them an address, with a tacked on, "Thank you."

Then, after a second, she says, "You're bleeding."

Clint looks down at himself. He knows about the arm that got scraped in the store. He'll need to clean it up, but it's not a big deal. Kate glances over and says, "Someone got your ear."

Which explains it: anything near the head looks worse than it is. Clint can feel it now that it's been mentioned, but it's an easy fix. He promises the girl, "It's fine. Just a little clean up."

She says, "Thank you," again, and Kate takes a hand off the wheel to wave the gratitude away. "We really kind of do this all the time."

It's not too much of a stretch, so Clint closes his eyes and lets her drive. The injuries are small, nothing he can't walk off, but his head is pounding. He reminds her, "Coffee. Then bandages."

"Director Fury has told me more than once that I can request a transfer, you realize?"

"Nobody would love you the way I love you," he tells her, and makes it sound like it's a joke. She'll know better. She's less emotionally damaged than anyone he knows.

"I know, I keep telling him I can't leave you to your fate. This is what mercy looks like, bitch."

Clint opens his eyes for a moment. "Mercy's got cobwebs in her hair."

Kate growls. "You know I fucking hate that. You know it."

Because he really does love her, he reaches over and uses his fingers to brush them out.

*

They drop the heiress off at her home, going in to make sure there are people there. The house is inhabited by both frantic family members and professionally sympathetic detectives. Clint flashes his SHIELD badge, gives the girl into the arms of the nearest agent and disappears before anyone can start asking questions. They don't have anything to hide, Clint just doesn't like questions or government employees. He's aware of the irony.

They're near the Village so Kate takes him to Kaffe 1668 and orders him a triple shot of single origin. He forgives her most of her sins. 

She takes them back to his place and they take turns showering. She pushes a couple of painkillers on him and then sews up his arm. All the ear really needs is a butterfly bandage. He asks, "Anything you need fixed?"

"I know how to stay out of harm's way," she tells him. He thinks she might follow it up with an exasperated, " _Boys,_ " but his hearing is not as good as his sight, so the word is lost to him.

He gives her his biggest grin. "By hanging out with me?"

"In spite of it."

*

True to her word, two days later, Kate drags Clint out to go shopping, once again. This time, nobody is shot or kidnapped. Trying to figure out what to buy for Tony is nearly as work intensive as dealing with the former, but eventually they come across an Iron Man belt buckle that is too hilarious to pass up, and consider it a job well done.

Kate purchases Pepper's shoes online in the interest of not revisiting that particular crime scene. Coulson is easy—the entire series of MTV's Real World on DVD—he likes the classics in all things. Natasha is also easy, tickets to Prague for New Year's and a promise to cover anything that comes up.

Clint has no idea what to get Bruce. Kate asks, "Coffee drinker?"

"Tea," Clint tells her glumly.

"That works too."

There are, as it turns out, entire stores that specialize in teas and have salesclerks that can help with selection. Clint isn't wholly sure how the world came to this, and he isn't sure he approves.

Maria's a sure thing with tickets to the US Open. Clint's seen her play. He sometimes wondered if she should have gone pro. She likes dissecting the games almost as much as playing them, which is handy in this instance.

Between Clint and his bow—maybe his quiver—he would have punked out on the Director if there hadn't been Kate and her enthusiasm and insistency. The one and only thing Clint knows about the Director as a person, rather than a boss, is that he likes 60s Blues music. With Kate's Google-fu and Clint's instinct for what might work, they find a BB King bootleg worth acquiring despite the considerable cost.

Thor is the easiest, so far as Clint was concerned. They make a trip down to Philly and buy a crate of every Taystykake ever created. And a few more for themselves. 

Kate insists that Clint buy her present on his own. Clint warns her: "This will not end well for you."

"Give it the old college try," she tells him, and kisses him on the cheek before abandoning him to his fate. Clint stares at the door for a few minutes after she has left and then goes to make coffee. He's going to need coffee for this.

*

Clint has two conversations with Lucky about the situation. The first starts with, "Who needs Christmas?" but that makes Lucky hide behind the kitchen counter for a good hour, so Clint abandons that tactic. It is strange, the idea of actually celebrating, but not a bad strange. And as much as he gives her shit, most of Kate's ideas tend to be pretty solid. He figures he might as well give it a shot.

"What would you give her?" goes over better with Lucky, who brings Clint the squeaky Hulk toy Clint hadn't been able to resist giving him. Clint takes the toy and tousles Lucky's fur. He throws the toy and tells Lucky, "I don't think Bruce'll go for it. She's kind of young for him."

Lucky is undeterred; he brings the toy right back. Clint falls into a rhythm of throwing while he considers his options. There are dresses and shoes, which Kate likes, but which feel all wrong. She likes card games, but at last check, Clint's pretty sure she had something like eight card decks, and a few electronic versions. She doesn't love coffee the way he does. 

It's this last thought, the way Kate laughs at his foibles, his need for caffeine to get himself going, his weakness for dogs who get shot for him, and his fondness for increasingly ridiculous arrowheads, that has him coming up with something.

He has to gear up to make the call necessary for what he wants. He hates asking for anything in return for charitable donations, particularly ones he's been making anonymously since he started being regularly employed. He doesn't think he's going to come up with a better idea, though, so he takes a deep breath and drops a dime.

*

Christmas Eve, Kate shows up with a four foot tall Christmas tree that has seen better days. She shrugs, "It was what was left on the lot that I could get over here. Besides, runty trees need love, too."

"Okay, Charlie Brown."

"Hah!" She sets down the tree and points at him. "I _knew_ you knew what Christmas was."

Clint ignores her, going over to see what's in the grocery bags she's left on the counter while getting the tree situated. They're full to bursting with food. Clint asks, "You do know it's just us, right?"

"Lucky wanted leftovers. He was insistent."

Clint grins in the direction of the dog, who's very confused by the shrubbery being erected in the middle of their living space. Then he begins to unpack the goods. There's golden potatoes and the makings for green bean casserole, honey-baked ham, peaches and nectarines, a full bottle of brandy, cream and full sticks of butter, flour and sugar and eggs. And that's just the first bag. 

Kate, happy with the way the tree looks, comes over and starts setting things up as she wants them. She orders him around, making him bring her cooking implements. What he doesn't have—which is about half of what she wants—they improvise on. It takes a few hours, but when they sit down to eat, Clint isn't lying when he tells her, "This is awesome."

She holds up the glass of Malbec she's drinking. Clint responds with his beer. She says, "To Christmas."

Clint clinks his bottle against her glass and drinks to that.

*

Clint wakes Kate up early the next morning. She groans, "Christmas is for sleeping in."

"Small children on the television tell me differently. Up." He ambles out to the kitchen and pours her a cup of coffee, because he's a magnanimous super hero that way. He drinks the rest straight from the pot.

She re-emerges in sweats with a glare of death and doesn't even thank him for the coffee. He tells her, "I need a more grateful sidekick."

"Sidekick this, Barton," she mutters.

"You are not in the Christmas spirit," he admonishes. She responds with an eloquent finger. He herds her, coffee mug and all, into his car. "Don't worry, I'll do the driving."

*

Clint does the flying, too, once they're at the jet pad. Kate eyes the jet, with its garish coloring and says, "Does Stark even know how to do subtle? Ever?"

"Not that I've seen," Clint tells her. She takes a nap as he settles into flying, which has never failed to calm him, not even while doing so in and out of hot zones. He lands easily, the weather in Tennessee cold with flurries, but nothing so bad as to keep them in the air.

Kate asks, "Tennessee?"

Clint just says, "C'mon." 

It's a full hour's drive to the Sanctuary. When he gets there, a woman in her early sixties is minding the administrative office. She comes out to their car. "You must be Clint."

"You must be Carol," he says, smiling. "This is Kate. Thanks for doing this. Sorry to drag you away from your family on Christmas."

She tilts her head a bit and says, "Oh, we'll be with my family." Then, "You know we don't usually allow this, right? And if I didn't think the kind of money you've given and have pledged will get us to our goals indefinitely, we wouldn't be doing this at all."

Clint knows. He feels more than a little guilty about it, but he'd wanted this too much, both for himself and Kate. He asks her, "You trained, right? For circuses?"

She nods, a tight little action. He continues, "Remember an outfit called 'Carson's'?"

Her eyes narrow. He knows she does. He tells her, "There was a girl."

"Misty," she says, the name cold on her lips. 

"Misty," Clint agrees, not even bothering to hide the fondness in his tone. "Pretty much the only creature who liked me in the whole show."

Carol blinks. "You would have been a kid."

"Eleven when we first met. I don't imagine she'll remember." Clint shrugs. "But I remember her."

"Clint?" Kate asks softly.

He turns to her. "Couldn't think of what to get you, so, I thought I'd introduce you to the first friend I ever had." 

"An elephant," she says, as if she's turning over the idea in her mind. 

Carol says quietly, "Let's go find your girl."

*

Misty hasn't changed a bit since Clint last saw her. She doesn't seem smaller or duller or anything that Clint might have worried about. Nope, she's a beautiful, perfect 9,025 pounds or so, currently engaged in giving herself a sand bath.

Clint wants to run to her, wrap himself around her front leg the way he had at twelve. He stays where he is, waits for her to notice them, to come over. She considers them for a moment before reaching out with her trunk, sniffing at Clint's hair, his neck. She might not recognize him, but he thinks she knows he's familiar. He wraps his hand over her trunk gently and says, "Hi girlie, hi."

Kate says, "She's gorgeous, Clint."

Clint knew she'd be able to see it. He says, "Yes, she is," and, "Merry Christmas, Kate."

Kate presses into his side, warm despite the chill of the day. He wraps his free arm around her waist and thinks he could stay here for a long time, with a friend who used to shower him with peanut casings and another who steals his dog's affections away. Kate might have a point about this whole Christmas thing, maybe.

*

They get back to New York late, but not so late that there's not time to sit in Clint's living room with the tree and eat the sugar cookies Kate had made for the evening before. There's one present under the tree and Kate hands it over to him. She says, "Not as flashy as yours."

Inside the box there are three smaller boxes layered into each other. The final box reveals four twelve ounce bags of coffee beans, with a notification that he's been enrolled in the Better Beans twelve month coffee club. There's a small, "For stealing your coffee, merry Xmas," scrawled across the back of the notification.

Clint laughs. "Fancy a cup of coffee?"

Kate makes an indelicate noise. "Sure, why not, it's only going on eleven."

"Perfect time for it," Clint tells her, and goes to put on a pot.

**Author's Note:**

> The elephant sanctuary that Clint takes Kate to is a real place, Misty is a real elephant (her background might be slightly different...) and Carol is one of the real founders. Check out [this site](http://www.elephants.com/) to learn more about what the sanctuary does/how to help, if that's your sort of thing.


End file.
